Witch and Hero- A Deeper Look
by Mello-Drama-Reborn
Summary: Witch and Hero. That's not all they were. They were people, with lives and faces and fears. (A drabble series. New chapters will be added only if the inspiration hits me. T for blood).
1. An Introduction

_A long, long time ago, there was an evil monster called Medusa._

_She and her minions wreaked havoc on many neighboring villages. _

_One day, a village chief sent a witch and a hero to end her evildoings. _

Witch and Hero. That's not all they were. They were people, with lives and faces and fears.

When the hero first saw the flyer on the wall of his local tavern, he thought it was fate. He was the type of person who believed in fate, because then he could blame fate when things didn't turn out for the best.  
>Before that moment, the hero had given a deep sigh and a groan. While he was a hero in title, he hadn't become a hero to much of anyone. His swordsmanship teacher had been lax and cautious, and partially as a result, the hero was a coward. He had said to himself "I will go on an adventure and learn to be brave", and that was when he looked up and saw the flyer. And so he called it fate.<p>

The witch was a very different person. A fiery young woman, the witch was already confident in her skills despite her lack of experience, and she was ready to take on any challenge that could prove to everyone else her strength. The flyer caught her attention on a lamppost, and she had not felt fear at the prospect of facing down the terrible monster it mentioned.

So both of them made their way to the town of the village chief who had advertised for heroes. For their motives; they were the only ones who dared faced the dreaded monster. The two set out on their quest for "justice"; self-improvement, self-actualization; pity and pride.

The trek was long and the monsters on the way many. Quickly the witch, always superior, noticed the deficiencies of the hero.  
>"What kind of hero passes out at the sight of some jelly with a smiley face!?"<br>The hero felt the witch to be intimidating and cruel, but the way her insults matched so well with his own musings made him want to impress her, so as maybe to find some worth in himself.

Over time, the two faced challenges that brought them together, that made them strong and made them a team. While the hero would fear the monsters he faced and often lose consciousness to escape the pain and the fear, it would be the witch picking him up when he'd rather sleep through it all; die on the mountain and never left his sword again. And the more battles he survived, the more quickly he got up, because he was starting to think he was invincible as long as she was there.

While the hero feared Medusa, he had relented and agreed with the witch that many of her terrifying powers were no more than rumor. The witch was one to underestimate an opponent, and the heroes cautiousness often worked to balance this when his fears outweighed her pride; but that was happening less often, because she was often right, and he was starting to think he was invincible as long as she was there.

_They finally made it into Medusa's castle…_

… _And lost._

But it was his fear that saved him. When the two finally reached the evil Medusa's chambers, the witch looked the monster in the eye, but the hero, no matter how silly it may have sounded, still believed that she could turn her opponents to stone. He opened his eyes, his gaze low to the ground, to see the stony robes of his friend.  
>The hero tried to be brave then. He thought he could be, then, with his friend turned to stone and their shared quest nearly at an end. He wanted to be brave for her, at that critical moment.<br>And it was a valiant effort, but he wasn't strong enough. Neither of them were.

_The witch was turned to stone and the hero was beat to a pulp. The hero barely escaped, taking the stone witch with him._

He didn't know how he managed to get away, to scurry out of that castle amongst Medusa's magic and swarms of her minions and still manage to take the life-sized statue of the witch with him, but in the end only the flight of the fearful was capable of outdoing the monster's power.

The hero fled far, far away from Medusa's fortress, back through all the land the he and the witch had traversed together, back even further. Medusa, never liking to leave a job unfinished, sent her largest creatures to guard the way back, warned her hoards of their presence, but no matter how easily she could crush them, it annoyed her that such easy prey had entered her lair and lived to tell the tale.

The tale…

of Witch and Hero.


	2. Get Up

The hero had been beaten to a pulp and ran. His only consolation was that he had remembered to take with him the stone statue of his long time companion, the witch.  
>He fled the place the two had travelled so long to find, and ran as far as his tired legs could take him and his stone burden.<p>

The hero found it ironic when the first wave of monsters came. In the past, on their first journey together, it had been the witch that had defended the cowardly hero. Now, finally being the stronger of the two, the hero vowed to protect the witch.

Flat against the ground, the heroes blurred vision stayed fixed on the stone figure of the witch. While he yearned to give up, to stay where he was and never again lift his sword, the witch's voice echoed in his head, urging him onward, and he lifted his weary body from the ground and rushed to her, slaying all that threatened her with a renewed vigor.

The hero soon found it was easier to protect others than himself. His fears projected on the witch, he no longer fled as he once did; his only fear was that she would break, and he risked any harm to himself to prevent it.  
>The hero wondered if that was what it meant to be a hero. He wondered if there were other heroes as cowardly as he. He wondered a lot of things, because he was alone and there was nothing to do on those long treks but wonder.<p> 


	3. Alone

"Hey, that's a nice statue; is it for sale?"

The hero shook his head, and the villager gave him a quizzical look. "If it ain't for sale, why are you lugging around the thing? Delivering it for someone?"  
>If the hero had been the type to react in anger, he would have drawn his sword for his offense. His travels that day had been long and exhausting, his shoulders sore from pushing the Witch ahead of him, leaving him in a sour mood. Instead, he simply continued through the town with an unreadable expression.<p>

People in the towns had started to look at him oddly. Somehow, word had spread about him; the warrior who carried the statue of a witch. It was not in good taste to bring a life-sized figure of a woman wherever one went, and the hero could see what they were thinking about him. At an earlier time, he would be wracked with nervousness at such rumors, but the long battles he had endured had changed him.  
>The only one who seemed unperturbed by the witch's presence was the shopkeeper; but she probably kept a face in order to make sales. The hero didn't need to know whether or not she cared, or how she felt about it.<p>

It was easier, just the two of them on the long stretches between towns. Though he nervously feared for his sanity, he had begun to talk to her.

"I don't know what it is, but whenever we settle down it's like I have to beat every monster in the surrounding region just to find some piece," he moaned, "what is it about you that attracts them all!?" He gave a deep sigh, like the ones he was known for giving back home, and he looked at the statue.

He had always been too afraid to look at her closely before; the fire in her eyes had frightened him away from staring. He could look as long as he liked now, and often took advantage of it. While the witch had never cared much for appearances, keeping her wild, fiery hair long and unkempt, the hero liked how she looked; he found her pretty.  
>"Maybe they're drawn to you for the same reason I am," the hero laughed, "ha, I could never say something like that to you if you weren't made of stone!"<p> 


	4. Blood

The Great Witch looked at the hero with pity in her eyes. Her spell had failed, for even her great magic could not overcome Medusa's spell.  
>In consolation, she told him how he might bring life back to the witch temporarily.<p>

The hero had never liked blood, even the blood of monsters. When he and the witch had first set out, he had fainted at the first sight of blood. He had trouble differentiating it from his own, and when great hoards came he thought he might be drowning.  
>So he grimaced, sheathing his sword so he could collect the blood of his enemies. He was glad, at least, that there was no short supply, and even when the sight of bright red on his palms made his stomach do flips, he promised himself he'd do anything to bring back the witch, no matter how long it lasted.<p>

It looked gruesome, the rough grey of the stone dripping with bright red, but when he had quickly splashed her statue he turned away only to see a familiar storm of whirlwinds in front of him, and the hero felt a rush of joy well up in him. When he looked back at her, she scolded him for turning his back to the enemy, asked how they had gotten here, how they had got surrounded, and before she could get any answers she was stone again.  
>It was so brief, he hadn't even seen if the blood was still on her living figure, or if she had come back as clean as she had been when they had challenged the evil monster, Medusa.<p>

After a while, the hero was no longer startled by all the blood.  
>The monsters were simply vessels, carrying the supplies the hero needed to bring the witch back; for that short, invigorating glimpse of her as she once was. He couldn't look long; he had to defend her, even when she was no longer brittle stone and her eyes once again shined with that feisty fire that always reminded him of the favorite of her two spells that she had used on their journey.<br>Even when he missed seeing that look, it felt good to work in tandem with her again, hearing her voice at his back, seeing the rush of spells in his peripheral. Combat became a rush.

He wondered when she was stone again and he was dragging her through the large, lonely terrain if she was impressed with how he fought now.


	5. The Witch

She opens her eyes, there are monsters on all sides. She looks frenzied for the hero, catches him just turning away from her, warding off the approaching monsters. She turns, taking out her storm spell in an effort to clear the area around them.

She blinks.

The setting is different, the sun is lower than it was a minute ago, but the scenario is mostly the same. There are monsters, and his back is too her.

She blinks.

A battle, a battle, a battle. There is no rest in between. She's too focused on survival to feel weary.

Eventually, when she blinks, she hears the hero's voice, shouting a spell or a direction; she wants to ask since when was he in charge, but she has difficulty assessing her surroundings when they're always changing, every time she blinks, so the witch listens to him.

She wonders, in between shots of magic, what happened to Medusa. It seems like they're always fighting, and she doesn't know what she fighting for anymore. She wants to talk to him, but there's never time.

Once, she blinks only to see the hero fall at her feet, a monster just behind him looking proud. She fires with a ferocity, and she screams for the hero to get up, but he's already lifting his battle-weary muscles from the ground and she catches a look on his face that she's never seen before, but before she can place it she blinks and he's somewhere else, his back to her and his sword drawn.


	6. You're my hero

After battles, the hero made a habit of collecting whatever blood was remaining in bottles. He was saving them so that he could waste them, when there are no enemies, just so that he could look at her and speak to her when she was alive and warm again.

He finally decided to do it after an especially discouraging battle. The witch was close to breaking and he had to run again, and he was reminded of Medusa, because he felt as sore as he did then and he felt like a coward again and he needed her like but she couldn't help him and he was stuck fleeing with her statue in tow. He was scared, scared again of everything like he was before, and he wondered if the cracks would show on her face if her brought her back.  
>That night he looked at her crumbling figure and wondered if it may be the end of her so he uncorked one of the foul bottles with the desperation of someone losing his only friend.<p>

In an instant she was there, her red hair burning in the firelight, and she looked around crazed but found nothing there. Slowly, she turned to the hero and he tried to smile, and to his surprise she smiled back and her voice was calm but scathing just like he remembered.

"Well, I never thought I'd miss talking to _you_."

He tried to use his limited time with her wisely; he tried to explain what had happened but it was too much and she didn't believe most of it, and they ended up arguing until the third bottle runs out and he only has one left. He stared at it and wondered if he should waste it finishing that line of thought, but he didn't want their conversation to end on that note so with some hesitation he uncorked it and poured it over the statue.

"This is the last time we can talk for a while," he said, despair suddenly weighing on him as he realized the meaning of his own words. Her face softened and she tried to hide her begrudging understanding.

"Well, at least you were brave enough for once to look after something other than your own skin. You didn't leave me there with Medusa and turn tail, so I guess that's worth someth-"  
>"It's not though! I wasn't brave," the hero interrupts, his voice unsteady, "I saved you because I was scared; I'd be too scared without you!"<p>

She gives him a profound look, and there are words on the tips of her lips, but before she can say them she turns to stone and the hero is alone again, his bottles empty and the ground wet with blood getting colder.


End file.
